Simple Tips You Can Use Now for Getting the Most Out of Social Media

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Eric

You may be the kind of person that uses social media in a very quiet way. You’re content to use one or two networks to keep in contact with your friends and family.

However, it’s important to establish a professional presence on social networks as well. People live on these networks. Not only do they socialize, but they use these networks to research products and services, to solicit opinions and reviews and to buy stuff.

If you’re not using social media for your massage business then you are missing out on a terrific opportunity to connect with people and get more clients under your hands.

I don’t believe you have to spend a lot of time on social media sites like Facebook to be effective and over the next couple weeks I’ll share some simple, quick, easy to implement social media tips with you in this blog, on the BodyworkBiz Facebook Page and in the BodyworkBiz newsletter.

Let’s get started with tip number one…

Tip 1: Create Profiles on Major Social Media Sites

Even if you are not active on social media sites, it’s extremely valuable to have a complete profile set up. Why? Because people will be looking for you and your business on these sites and they expect to find you. If they can’t find you easily, then they’ll look for someone else.

I would suggest at the very minimum setting up complete profiles on each of the following social media sites:

Through the month of April I’ll be providing BodyworkBiz fans a range of simple tips that are easy to implement and that take very little time to do. Be sure to Like BodyworkBiz on Facebook and subscribe to the Marketing Tips Newsletter to get these tips.

Facebook Changes News Feed

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Eric

Today Facebook unveiled more changes to the site. This time it’s the News Feed. That’s the page you land on when you first log in that contains Posts from your Friends and Pages you follow.

Facebook doesn’t say exactly how the changes are going to impact business Pages, but at first glance it’s not good. Users will have the ability to choose more specifically what they want to see in their News Feed and will be able to filter any Page Posts out of their feed.

It seems as though businesses will have to be more engaging, use more visually interesting content and post more frequently to be seen. Once again, Facebook is forcing business users to move to paid advertising to get seen on the site.

For screenshots and a comprehensive look at some of the changes see this article: http://bit.ly/16ck5q0

If you’ve been following this blog you know I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook. Maintaining some presence on Facebook is important, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify and significant investment of your time on Facebook. Paid advertising options have become the most cost-effective way of leveraging this social media giant.

Facebook sending your visitors to competitors?

In related news I recently stumbled across another change on a Friend’s business Page. This seems to have received little attention, but could be devastating to your Facebook Page. Facebook may just be testing this in a limited way at this point because it does not appear on all Pages.

If this rolls out, when someone visits your Page they will be shown a strip of suggested Pages that are related to yours. It looks like this:

So essentially you as a business owner work your petutie off or pay for advertising to get your Page found and Facebook invites your visitor to check out other Pages of possible interest. Some of these could even be Pages of competing businesses as you can see from the screen shot above! You do the work to get the visitor on your Page so they can visit your competitors Page. I can only shake my head in disbelief.

Canadian Business Can Now List in Bing Local

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Eric

One of easiest things any massage business can do to get listed in the search engine results is to claim their listing in the big local directories like Google+ Local (formerly Google Places), Yahoo Local and Yelp.

Until recently, Canadian businesses could not get listed in Bing. That’s recently changed. So if you are a Canadian business read through this tutorial on getting listed in Bing Local:

http://www.stepforth.com/blog/2013/get-listed-on-bing-local-canada/

Does Facebook Marketing Really Work?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Eric

Social media is about building relationships. It’s not a direct sales tool and anyone expecting quick and immediate results will be disappointed.

I’ve talked in a general way about the role of social media as a marketing tool in other posts, but decided to write a short blurb around the value of social media after being asked by a therapist if it’s really possible to get clients from Facebook.

Those who use Facebook for business tend to focus on conversation to develop relationships with their Fans. That’s what you’re supposed to do right? Yes and no. Businesses tend to communicate about what people usually want talk about: pets, restaurants, movies, life, etc. People who focus on this kind of approach get Fans and develop relationships with people who like those topics.

The problem is that those Fans aren’t interested in what they have to sell. So when the conversation moves to business, their Fans are largely non-responsive. This makes social media seem like a waste of time. The feeling is, “I’ve spent a lot of time posting and it just doesn’t work. I’m not seeing any clients as a result of this.”

Those who make money on social media focus on providing their audience with info they need or want to know about around the subject of their expertise. There is still conversation, but it revolves around this expertise.

If you focus purely on creating conversation to build relationships, you turn your followers into friends who like you but who don’t buy from you. If you focus on content and the conversations that arise from that you develop trust and become an expert. This turns into a business relationship that will result in sales.

Let’s face it: Ultimately, you hire a mechanic because they can fix your car, not because they are your friend. So stop trying to make friends and instead start building business relationships. Don’t be a peer to your Facebook audience; Be their leader, the person they turn to for advice.

So does Facebook marketing really work? It can if it’s done in the right way. A couple of weeks ago I attended a webinar by Amy Porter and I can tell you with a certainty that I’ve made money as a direct result of implementing a couple of suggestions that were easy to do.

I’ve purchased her Facebook Influence course (it’s less than $100 bucks) and will be implementing many of the strategies she outlines in a systematic way in the new year. I’ll post some of my results here on the blog. I can say confidently that if I take the approach I’ve outlined above as I implement her tactics I’ll definitely be able to increase my sales.

Guest Blogging

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Eric

Instead of just writing for yourself, why not be a guest blogger and write for someone else’s blog?

This is a big idea, but you should be aware of this as an option.

Why would you do this?

For greater exposure
To get more traffic to your website
To develop a relationship (with both the blog owner and their readers)
For back links for search engine optimization of your own site/blog

Guest blogging is something that I do occasionally for other blogs. Here’s an example.

I also regularly solicit guest blog posts from other writers. Erik Dalton contributes regularly to the ABCs of Massage Therapy blog that I manage. In fact, I own that blog, but I don’t write any content for it at all.

Who would you write for?

You could write for any blog in exchange for a link back to your site, but it makes most sense to write for another local business blogger that has a following. You have a connection with both the blog owner and his readers, since you’re in the same boat and can identify with them a part of your community.

Generally, a proven rule of thumb is to approach blogs similar to yours when seeking guest spots – but if you can land a spot in a highly popular blog, go for it!

Don’t assume that top niche figures have no interest in less prominent guest bloggers. They’re as glad to get a break as anyone else.

Don’t waste time on blogs that are not active. It’s a sure sign the owner may just be too busy (or too disorganized) to promote it.

Here are your clues that a blog may be ripe for a guest writer. The blog owner is talking about:

1. Going on that cruise to Alaska next month
2. Heading off to an upcoming industry conference
3. Complaining about being overwhelmed with projects
4. Talking about their upcoming surgery
5. Talking about the impending birth of baby number three

In other words, get into the habit of looking for opportunities.

If you are networking at live events, ask other business owners if they mainatin a blog and offer to help them by guest posting.

Many blogs will actively solicit guest bloggers. I do that at www.abcsofmassagetherapy.com all the time. So if you are interested in contributing a short article, drop me a note and let me know.

Blogs that accept guest posts often have a spot in plain sight (often the sidebar) letting you know that guest bloggers are welcome and telling you how to apply.

Don’t expect that other bloggers have made the effort to set up their blog for guests however. You may have to be assertive and proactive about putting the idea in the owner’s head. In that case, it’s up to you to point out to the owner that you can help them out by providing relevant information for their readers and giving them a break from writing.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottiet812/2877745946/

Making Blog Comments Meaningful

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Eric

The Comments section is NOT the place to promote your business. If you do that you’re comment will probably be nixed and you’ve just wasted your time. Although some people may occasionally click the link on your comment, it’s not likely to provide you with any significant traffic.

As with the discussion list or forum postings, be sure to add some value to the conversation. For example, don’t simply comment by saying, “Nice post.”

Here’s an example of a comment from a real blog post about procrastination. You can see it’s just a couple of sentences and only took two minutes to write, but it adds to the conversation:

Linda P. [Note: In the real post this links to Linda’s website]
February 25, 2012 at 8:22 am
I’m a procrastinator so this is something I always need reminders of. Also I think I am a perfectionist so it is hard to start something that I know I might not finish completely or perfectly. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

A few suggestions for this type of comment:

Keep it short and sweet. Just add one piece of useful information or one idea.
Don’t be afraid to add a personal story or anecdote.
Play devil’s advocate. This is much more likely to get people’s attention (and the blogger’s attention).
Only include links if the page you are linking to is highly relevant to the post topic.

Honestly, trying to get direct traffic from posting like this is probably not the best use of your time, but if the opportunity arises, take advantage of it.

The Value of Blog Commenting

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Eric

So you certainly want to activate the comments feature on your blog. This will allow readers to post a comment on any one of your blog posts.

Make sure that you set up your blog so that you get notifications when someone posts. That way you can reply to the comment immediately if a response is required.

Spammers will use blog commenting to get links back to their own site, so I suggest youdo not auto-approve comments. Instead manually approve each one. My blog is set up so that I approve the first post from a new commenter, after which all subsequent comments from that person are auto-approved.

Using comments to get backlinks and visitors

You can use commenting to get backlinks to your own site, but you should never do this in a spammy way. Make sure you are always providing value to the other blog readers.

How does commenting on other people’s blogs get you banklinks?

Typically when you leave a blog comment you will be asked to enter in your name, your website URL and your email address. Your email address is not displayed, so don’t be too concerned about giving it up.

Typically, what you enter as your name is hyperlinked with the website URL you provide. This allows you to add some relevant anchor text to your link. So instead of signing the blog post with your given name, use keywords related to your website, i.e. Toronto Massage Guy.

Not all comment links are equally useful. Although some blogs put no conditions on site links, most blogs insert a “nofollow” tag in each post that tells the search engines not to follow the links on the page (the comment links). However, it is still a backlink and still has value.

Personally I’m not a fan of commenting for the sole purpose of getting traffic to your site or blog. I’d rather participate in discussions in a meaningful ways and see the back links as a side benefit.

So subscribe to some blogs that you enjoy. Set aside some time to comment on posts that interest you from week to week.

Submitting Your Blog to Directories

Posted on August 25, 2012 by Eric

Previously we talked about RSS Feeds. By listing your blog URL and RSS feed in directories you can get backlinks and expose your site to potential visitors and the search engines. This is just another part of your off-page search engine optimization.

Here are some of the top blog directories you should consider listing in. These are listed roughly in order of importance, so if you only have time to do three, list in the first three listed below:

www.bloglines.com
www.technorati.com
www.blogarama.com
www.blawg.com
www.blogcatalog.com
www.blogexplosion.com
www.blogflux.com
www.feeds4all.com
www.feedcat.net
www.chordata.info
www.lsblogs.com
www.plazoo.com

Of course it takes some time to do this (probably several hours to post to the ones mentioned above). So why not have someone do it for you. I’ve mentioned Fiverr in a previous post. There are a lot of people on Fiverr who will submit your RSS feed to a number of blog directories for just five bucks.

I think this is now post 19 of 31.

Google Doesn’t Rank Websites

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Eric

This is Part 4 in a series of posts on getting your massage blog ranked in Google. You can read the other posts starting here.

It may come as a surprise that Google doesn’t rank your website, but it’s true…

Google and the other search engines don’t rank your website as a whole, but rather rank individual pages within your website, or in this case your blog.

So it may not always be the home page of your blog that shows up in search results. In fact, it will likely be a specific blog post that shows up in the results.

What does that mean to you? It means that you can increase your chances of catching Google’s eyes dramatically by creating a variety of pages on your site each with a different focus. It’s also important to have backlinks, not just to your home page, but to other site pages as well. Let me give you an example to make this more concrete…

If have one page that lists all modalities I use in my practice (including reflexology), It would be difficult for Google to consider that page important if someone went online and searched for “Dallas reflexology” because all modalities have equal billing.

However… if I create a page about “Dallas reflexology” and have other posts on my site that look at various facets of reflexology and reference my “Dallas reflexology” page with a link, then suddenly my page has a very clear focus for people searching for “Dallas reflexology”. Google sees that as being relevant information for searchers and will likely rank that page highly in the search results when someone types that term into the search box.

Now that you have an basic understanding how Google is going to rank your blog pages, start your list of terms that people are likely to type when looking for your services and every once and a while use one of those terms as the theme for a blog post.

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Eric Brown, BodyworkBiz Blog

Tag Archives: web marketing